Looped In

From urban renewal to suburban sprawl, Houston’s real estate market is going through one of its most dynamic times in decades. Join real estate and development reporter Nancy Sarnoff as she meets the city’s developers, deal makers and dreamers and dishes with colleagues on all things Houston real estate.

It’s Swampie season. The real estate website Swamplot is collecting ballots for its annual “Swampie” awards, which showcase all that is remarkable and peculiar about Houston real estate. Nancy and Erin bring Swamplot editor Christine Gerbode into the studio to talk about the popular site and this year's categories for the Swampies.

Houston was hit with two major flooding events two years in a row. Roads and highways were under water. Subdivisions and people's homes were destroyed. Questions arose about why is this happening and what can be done to stop it. One of the biggest questions was about how Houston’s famous sprawl and building boom may have led to the devastation. On this episode of Looped In, Nancy and Erin interview their colleagues Mihir Zaveri and Mike Morris, the Chronicle's Harris County and city of Houston government reporters who are asking some of the tough questions about development policy in Harris County and the city of Houston. Is the government doing enough to protect property owners from flooding? How much has development led to flooding in areas that have never flooded before?

There could be weighty implications for Houston if president-elect Donald Trump picks Ben Carson for secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Nancy and Erin explain, while also updating listeners on the lawsuit against the Montrose Management District.

Town centers in The Woodlands, Sugar Land and elsewhere are filled with storefront-lined streets, multifamily housing and even hotels and office towers. But there's a darker side to suburbia in areas that lack infrastructure and private investment. In this episode, Nancy and Erin bring on the Chronicle’s suburban columnist Mike Snyder to discuss new research from Rice University’s Kinder Institute about this region’s ever-changing suburb.